


The Demon in My Head

by filthycasualsmark (exalteranima)



Series: The Demon At My Side [1]
Category: World Wrestling Entertainment
Genre: Community: wrestlingkink, Denial of Feelings, Gen, Introspection, Kayfabe Compliant, M/M, Pining, Sad Ending
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-01
Updated: 2016-09-01
Packaged: 2018-08-12 09:19:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,493
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7929274
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/exalteranima/pseuds/filthycasualsmark
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Seth Rollins contemplates his SummerSlam opponent.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Demon in My Head

**Author's Note:**

> Fill originally intended for [this wrestlingkink prompt](http://wrestlingkink.dreamwidth.org/279.html?thread=1103383#cmt1103383). I, uh, may have taken some liberties. I am so sorry.

Seth never had crushes on his coworkers.

Oh sure, he'd been fortunate enough to wrestle some of his childhood heroes over the years, even built close bonds with folks at the very top of his field. _(don't think of Dean and Roman don't think of Dean and Roman)_ But crushes? Nah. He wasn't some lovesick teenage girl, for crying out loud.

Seth had been so focused on Battleground and reclaiming the WWE Championship that he didn't have time to digest the results of the Draft. He especially didn't think to consider Raw's third draft pick, ostensibly the brand's second most important male superstar after himself. He'd only met the man in person once before: they were doing interviews to promote last year's SummerSlam weekend, Seth riding high in his first championship reign and drunk on his own hype, the other just happy to be there and fly the banner for NXT, a soft-spoken blip in his peripheral vision.

So when Finn Bálor stepped out of the blue that night on Raw, parting the small crowd onstage as he did so, the last thing Seth expected was a strange sensation blooming in his chest, somewhere within the ballpark of heartburn and a really stiff dropkick. Nothing like that sense of dread and mild nausea from when he was facing Cena or Lesnar, no — this was something else.

 

* * *

 

  
He's still kicking himself inside when he reviews the footage later, wincing at his own facial expression from over Bálor's shoulder. _(God, you look like an idiot, what the hell was that? Way to keep a cool head, Architect.)_

Seth watches Roman's Fatal Four-Way first, giving it only a cursory look, knowing full well what to expect from his brother _(ex-brother, get it right, dumbass)_. It's the other Fatal Four-Way that piques his interest, merits his undivided attention. If he replays that entire entrance back more than once, well, who's to know?

Seth already suspected in the back of his mind that Bálor would win. Still, it was something else watching the whole spectacle unfold in real time, his mental notes piling up one on top of another.

_He went after Owens first._  
_God, look at the size of him, he's smaller than everyone else in that ring._  
_How the fuck did he lift Cesaro like that?_  
_Shit, Rusev hit that corner hard._  
_How do you brace yourself for that? Must be like getting your innards scrambled in a blender, oof._

By the end of the night, Seth officially had his SummerSlam opponent. He lets his scheming take a backseat to his knee-jerk reactions for just a moment. _(He beat Roman. Noone ever beats Roman. Took me and Dean multiple shots to do it, and he beat Roman on his first try.)_ Tomorrow, though, he starts planning his strategy for SummerSlam and that Universal Championship. And nothing, noone was going to stand in his way.

 

* * *

 

  
It's been a while since Seth feuded with anyone who wasn't Roman or Dean.

He missed this, staying up late to research your opponent, study their old matches and scout out their weaknesses. Seth's still amazed he never once crossed paths with Bálor, given that they'd faced quite a few of the same people before. Daniel Bryan. Low Ki. Alex Shelley. Hideo Itami. Kenny Omega.

More jarring to Seth were all the people who had nothing but great things to say about Bálor. A lot of the NXT guys like Sami Zayn, Neville, Enzo and Cass were his buddies. Hunter spoke highly of him, as did everyone at the Performance Center back when Seth was rehabbing his knee. Becky _adored_ him, of course; he was the reason she became a wrestler in the first place. Hell, if _Shinsuke freaking Nakamura_ considered you a close friend, you must have done something right in life. That Bálor behaved like an overgrown child who still played with Legos and made goofy Instagram posts outside the ring didn't seem to bother anyone else.

Perhaps Seth had grown too accustomed to making enemies and burning bridges wherever he went; he couldn't even stay on speaking terms with the two guys he's shared car rides and hotel rooms with nonstop for almost two years. Meanwhile Bálor had managed to maintain ties with his old life in Japan, not to mention all his friends back in Europe.

 

* * *

 

  
It was almost unfair how much Seth enjoyed these verbal jousting sessions. It had to be one of his favorite parts of the job: stirring up the crowd with gusto, taking potshots at whatever dumb movie or game was trending on Twitter that day, lording over the ring and taking his sweet time on the mic while everyone else in the back seethed at wrestling on yet another lame Superstars taping.

Bálor was no Cena or Ambrose, but Seth found a strange sort of calm from standing between the ropes with him, the sweet promise of a storm brewing just beneath the surface. Bálor stood patiently—regarding him with a cool, inquisitive stare—as Seth prattled on and on, plucking random factoids about the other from memory and spinning them in his favor.

Both former NXT Champions. Both Raw's first-round draft picks. Both young men at the top of their game, just one spanking-new championship belt away from being king of the mountain. _Look at us. We're the future of this company. Our battles could tear the damn walls down._

With any luck, maybe Seth could get the crowd to jeer Bálor the way they did Roman. Bálor, however, wouldn't give him an inch. Not when Seth hurled every boast, threat and invective he could think of in Bálor's face, not when he promised to make an example of Sami Zayn later that night, not even when he pulled out the perfectly rehearsed villain cackle that got on so many of his past opponents' nerves. Bálor proved as efficient on the mic as he was in a match, making his point without mincing his words or bending the truth.

Their back-and-forth was exhilarating, fun even, up until that moment Bálor struck a nerve. Prodded at an open wound Seth didn't even realize he had, causing him to lose his temper along with his carefully tended facade of poise.

"I've never had _anything_ handed to me in my career! I've worked every day for it! The only thing that's gonna be handed to me is that Universal title at SummerSlam when I _beat_ you and show you who The Man _really_ is!"

"The only thing you're gonna have handed to you at SummerSlam is your _ass!_ "

And just like that, things swung from tense back to thrilling again. Their silent staredown seemed to stretch on for an eternity, the crowd roaring "Yes!" chants all around them.

Later, as Seth preened from his latest victory over Zayn while nursing his bruised ego from that one annoyingly well-placed Pelé kick, he could still vividly picture how those bright, piercing blue eyes seemed to peer into his own hardened husk of a soul.

 

* * *

 

  
This was ridiculous. Seth never calls his opponents beautiful.

Except nothing else seemed to fit when it came to Finn Bálor. His moves were impossibly smooth, his kicks and double stomps striking with surgical precision, his counters impeccably timed, and his Sling Blade almost as flawless as Seth's was. And why wouldn't it? Bálor did spend years in Japan wrestling the man who invented the damn move.

He reminded Seth a little of Orton, if Orton was a bit shorter and had fairer skin, devastating blue eyes and a sexy Irish brogue. Finn wasn't just beautiful, he was _obscenely_ beautiful. The kind of beautiful that only existed in porn, not a goddamn wrestling ring. Seth could already imagine Dean laughing and making kissy noises at him, for all that he wouldn't shut up about how perfect Finn was.

_(When did Bálor become Finn?)_

 

* * *

 

  
Seth figured he wouldn't take the bait, would know better than to show himself in Corpus Christi of all places. Then again, Finn seemed the type to tackle a challenge head-on, wear his heart on his sleeve. He cut an entire promo about Irish mythology, for fuck's sake. Who does that? _(You should not find that strangely endearing.)_

Oh, well. All the better for your opponent to give up his game early.

As he stood in the ring calling out that stupid nickname one more time, Seth felt his pulse speed up with anticipation the moment the lights flickered out. He knew what was coming, combed YouTube and the WWE Network for all the myriad variations of Bálor's shock-and-awe entrance routine. Still, nothing prepared him for the throbbing red lights, the clouds of fog emanating from the ramp, the deafening heartbeats—both the arena's SFX and his own—segueing into the deep breath, the opening riff, the grand crescendo of Bálor's music.

A familiar silhouette emerged from the fog, crawling down the ramp, stopping only to command the entire crowd at every swooping orchestral swell. Seth felt a hybrid of excitement and terror settle in his gut, something he hadn't felt since he was ten years old watching the Undertaker in action for the first time. The figure inched up the steps before nimbly ascending the turnbuckles and ring post, raising his arms in another cloud of smoke and climbing back down onto the canvas.

It was difficult to reconcile the lovable goof that took dorky Instagram selfies with the dark, sinuous creature standing before him. Seth couldn't tear his eyes from how the paint warped the natural lines of Finn's face, spreading out to his shoulders, arms, back and chest. He gulped at the painted tongue traveling from his throat to his pecs, at the teeth framing his upper body in jagged symmetry, at the words scrawled up and down his right side like a sorcerer's hex.

All the pictures and videos on the internet couldn't do justice to seeing the Demon King in the flesh. As much as Seth ragged on about how silly the idea of it was for the last couple of weeks, _it was working_. To his horror Seth was actually getting turned on, and it dawned on him that maybe that was the point: Finn using his beauty as a weapon.

_(Or maybe this stupid little crush really was messing with your head big time.)_

Seth had just enough presence of mind left to attack before the Demon struck first. The two exchanged blows until Seth slid out the ring and scampered back up the ramp, still high on adrenaline as Finn stood tall in the center of the arena bathed in red light.

Seth stormed back to his dressing room in an agitated huff, not daring to acknowledge that _other_ sensation warring with the humiliation and white-hot fury in his chest. He was going to _destroy_ Bálor at SummerSlam, and he could already tell the man would refuse to go down easy. They might even end up doing this for the rest of their days, if Seth was lucky.

 

* * *

 

  
Something wasn't right.

Did he rush it? Get the angle wrong? No, Finn screwed it up, shouldn't have moved his arm like that. Shouldn't have turned mid-air, rookie mistake. _(Finn was no rookie.)_ Seth did the powerbomb spot like he always did, his aim was perfect — wasn't it?

Doesn't matter. Even with a sore shoulder, Finn never lost a step. Still gave the match of his life. Still kicked the tar out of him. Still pinned Seth clean as a whistle. Still became the first ever WWE Universal Champion. That one shitty landing on the barricade didn't matter.

Except Finn never got to finish his celebration. Never got that round of handshakes from everyone in Gorilla and the locker room, never got that metric ton of pictures taken with the belt backstage, never even got his post-match interview. They rushed him straight to the trainer's room to get his shoulder looked at.

_It was an accident,_ Seth told himself.

_Yeah, just like Cena's nose was. Just like Sting's neck was._

Fuck. Fuckfuckfuckfuckfuck.

 

* * *

 

  
Nothing — not that whole mess with his ex-fiancée, not the sick lurch he felt when his knee gave out from under him, not the months he spent sitting at home fixing said knee, not the vicious verbal reprimands he'd gotten from both Hunter and Vince — made Seth's stomach drop faster than the split second after he read Foley's tweet that Monday.

Not even a full day holding the title and Finn was relinquishing it. That had to be a new record.

Suddenly Seth was overcome by the urge to vomit. He tried to recall that gush of pure joy he felt winning the championship at WrestleMania. Relived the bitter disappointment of giving it up after Dublin months later. Finn had just experienced both of those things in the span of 24 hours. All thanks to one shitty landing.

Seth then remembered something else he saw on Twitter, some blurry snapshot a fan took on their phone the night before. It was Finn walking out of the hotel in Brooklyn with his arm in a sling, Sami and Neville by his side. Seth had thought nothing of it at the time, assumed it was just some kind of safety measure, scrolled past it on his phone and never saw it for the grim omen it really was.

Finn was benched for at least six months. He was going to miss out on his first full reign as champion.

_Did I do that?_ Seth's brain murmured traitorously at him. _Did I rob Finn of his moment of glory?_

 

* * *

 

  
_The show must go on,_ Seth repeated to himself as the frenzied drumbeats of his soundtrack blared across the arena. He didn't miss the boos that erupted the moment he stepped out of the curtain, nor the sight of Stephanie and Mick in the middle of the ring, the now-vacated Universal title slung over Mick's shoulder beckoning to him like a siren's call.

It took all of Seth's resolve not to drop his signature smarmy grin when he turned to the side of the ramp, looking Finn straight in the eye. Seth couldn't tell if Finn was angry or disappointed at him; Finn's gaze was measured, inscrutable, cold as ice.

Cold. That was what stung the most. It didn't matter that Finn was gracious enough to thank Seth in the ring just moments before; Seth couldn't shake the feeling that he did his job too well, burned yet another bridge. At least he had two years' worth of good memories to remember Dean and Roman by. What did he and Finn have?

Seth turned his head back towards the ring, strutting with confidence as Finn looked on. In several months' time when Finn came back — _if_ he came back — he would be yet another name on Seth's hitlist, one in a long line of kind, loyal, beautiful could-have-beens Seth trampled on his way to the top.

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> This is my first-ever AO3 fic, and my first WWE fic. Obviously unbeta'd, probably stuffed with word cruft and inconsistent tenses and adverbs and shit. Please be gentle.


End file.
